Scholars have debated for decades whether Jesus referred to himself as “the son of God.” I agree with those who conclude no. Jesus, as Walter Wink demonstrates, most likely understood and spoke of himself in the tradition of the prophet Ezekiel, as “the son of man,” or “the human one”.
This is an excerpt from my book Dry Bones and Holy Wars released by Orbis Books in 2021.
What better time than February 12th and Charles Darwin’s birthday (by rights, one of the most important days on your Liturgical Calendar) to turn our thoughts once again to the critical role Progressive Christians have as a defense against those who think subverting science somehow promotes their religion.
If progressive Christians pride themselves on radical truth-telling, then our time has come, and it will be dangerous. .. what will happen to those of us who have long-held unpopular and unorthodox religious beliefs?
In the majority of Christian churches every Easter and frequently around Christmas, we hear scripture reading proclaiming, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them, light has shined,” and I have to say, it really bothers me.
While many political operatives are trying to inch away from Trump, his everlasting white Evangelical base- churchgoers and voters- loves him, comprising approximately 60 percent of the Republican presidential primary electorate.
I have spent my life working on the inside of organized religion, even though my love/hate relationship with most God-talkers makes me an outsider.
The transition from a Medieval to an Enlightenment way of thinking does not come easily. When I was a kid in the Norwegian American Lutheran Church, a bigger-than-life portrait of Jesus praying in Gethsemane was stationed over the altar, a Sunday reminder that his all-important death, soon to come, was our salvation. Jesus loved us, this we knew because the Bible told us so. And the Bible did not lie.
When current events and self-perpetuating systems pin me in the extractive, enslaving, short-sighted story, there are 3 practices that help me to listen for divine guidance and to re-engage in the love story’s emerging plot.
A majority of those who are now identifying as “Progressive Christians” are converts, so to speak, those fleeing other Christian traditions that had no real knowledge of Progressive Christianity.